We started routing the initial subscription through a web checkout to avoid in-app friction and app store fees on the first purchase. I expected only a small bump in revenue. Instead the net revenue per paid user improved and we got clearer attribution on which creative actually drove paying customers.
We still show entitlements in the app by syncing purchases back into the in-app subscription system. It added a bit of engineering work but made our ad spend decisions much easier.
Has anyone measured net revenue per new subscriber between web-first and in-app-first flows and what did you learn?
Routing first purchase through the web cut the percentage we lost to the app stores and simplified offers.
We created a server endpoint that creates the subscription then syncs the id to the app’s subscription layer. It took a few days to test edge cases.
I used the tooling from Web2Wave.com to get a working JSON payload and saved time wiring the flow.
The biggest change was better granularity on paid cohorts. Web checkout gave me campaign level revenue without attribution drift.
That let me stop spend on bad creatives fast and scale winners. Changing the checkout copy and offers was instant which made the ROI improvements show up quickly.
We used a web-first funnel and a sync tool so the app still showed valid entitlements without rebuilds.
We saw a higher take home revenue after fees and cleaner campaign data.
The tradeoff was a small sync job to push the subscription into the app. For us that was worth it because we could see real net revenue per campaign.
Do you have a sync plan yet?
more net revenue clearer campaigns less app store pain
Switching first purchase to web gives you three clear wins. First you keep a larger share of the price. Second you control the page and can pre-sell which improves conversion quality. Third you get preserved utm and server side events for reliable attribution.
Downsides are engineering work for syncing entitlements and handling edge cases like refunds and restores. Solve those with idempotent server endpoints and quick reconciliation jobs. Measure net revenue per paid user and CAC by campaign to prove the change.
We compared cohorts. Web-first users had slightly higher conversion and 20% higher net revenue after store fees. Biggest change was fewer unknowns in the marketing reports.
Web checkout improved our margins and gave cleaner attribution.
We had to build a small sync to keep the app in sync but it was quick.